Last month, Apple announced a 13″ MacBook Pro with Retina Display, an inevitability to replace the “previous-generation” 13″ MacBook Pro sans high-resolution display. While that old model remains available as a cheaper alternative for the holiday season, our guess is it will be completely removed from Apple’s lineup by the end of next year leaving not a single consumer-level Mac with an optical drive.

What started with the MacBook Air in 2008, and seemed like a crazy concept to an industry reliant on hard media, is now complete, four years later. With software distribution moving entirely to the web and entertainment increasingly being bought and stored in the cloud, the need for an optical drive is diminishing, right? (more…)

The wait is over and the rumors have been debunked. Apple have announced a whole load of new products at their annual WWDC 2012 conference, including updates to the MacBook Air and Pro range, a whole new MacBook Pro, more information on the upcoming release of Mountain Lion and iOS 6.

Apple’s voice-dictation system Siri opened the keynote (with a casual stab at Android and Samsung) and after the usual figures by Tim Cook as well as an insight on how iOS apps are changing people’s lives, Phil Schiller took to the stage for the unveiling.

In addition to the long-awaited launch of OS X Lion, Apple gave us another surprise this week in the form of an update to the MacBook Air. New processors and a Thunderbolt port are just two of the exciting features in the newest models.

However, there are still plenty of doubts to be had about the overall direction Apple has taken for their line of MacBooks. Is the MacBook Air an acceptable replacement for the plain old MacBook? Have the risk-takers at Apple stripped off too much or have they created the best MacBook ever?

Steve Jobs worked his reality distortion field last October when unveiling updates to their Mac product line. The MacBook Air was one major part of that announcement and it was later cited as one of Apple’s financial successes for that quarter. Maybe it was all of us Apple fanatics buying it, or maybe it was Apple’s superb marketing that touted it as “the future of notebooks”.

Whether this is true for the whole industry or not, Apple has shown it has a keen interest in removing optical and traditional hard drives from machines with the MacBook Air. With all due respect to those who don’t like it, Apple has done a pretty good job at removing the need for these pieces of hardware with the Mac App Store and iTunes.